A rocky path to pride
Photo Credit: Sumar Deen
Hammond and her mother at a Prop 8 Rally in midtown Atlanta. Hammond and her family participate in events such as National Day of Silence and Pride as well.
August 22, 2010 • Sumar Deen, Scribbler staff
Filed under Student Life
Taylor Hammond is gay. It took three years and some major life changes to get her there. It all started when she was in 6th grade, living in Gwinnett County, alternating between living with her mother and father. Her life at her mom’s was on a totally different end of the spectrum from her dad’s. “With my mom I’d always grown up with the idea from her that being gay was okay and it wasn’t a problem or anything, but from my dad and his side of the family it was the polar opposite. I kinda grew up from both ends,” Hammond said.
A new lifestyle
“When I was in 6th grade my mom was in grad school. And she met some girl named Rachel. She fell in love with a girl, basically,” she said. “So then, I met Rachel. And she was really cool and we got along good.” However, this transition didn’t seem to go over as well with her father.
“[My dad] didn’t really say much, but it was apparent that he was not okay with it. And I knew he wouldn’t be because he always made comments about gay people and stuff like that,” she said. It didn’t seem like much else would become of it until a letter from her dad’s lawyer came in the mail a couple weeks later. Hammond’s father was suing her mother for full custody of Hammond. “I remember my mom being sad a lot,” she said. “There was a lot of drama and a lot of yelling from both sides.”
Shifts in sexuality
In the end, though, her parents went to a mediator, who helped them settle the dispute. A very structured schedule was drawn up with rules like Hammond would have dinner with her dad on Wednesdays, he would pay for any extracurricular activities and her mother would still keep her on weekdays. “It kinda turned out to me being property,” she said.
Hammond continued to live by these rules until 8th grade when Hammond went through a major shift in her own sexuality and how she saw herself. “I was at this one [basketball] game, [the] last girls game, and I was cheerleading, and all of a sudden, I ended up liking a girl on the basketball team,” she said. “So that was a little weird. I remember, at the game, I thought that I liked her and then I was like ‘Woah, that’s so weird.’” As far as Hammond knew, this wasn’t the norm at her school at all. There weren’t any gay people at Osborne Middle School. She decided to tell her mother all the same.
Taylor Hammond and her brother in a photo for a blog promoting equal rights for gay, lesbian, and transgendered people.
“We were all sitting at dinner — me and my mom and Rachel and my brother, Aidan — and my mom was like ‘What’s up with you?’ and I was like ‘I dunno … something weird happened’ and she was like ‘What?’ and so I told her, and she was like ‘Oh, that happens all the time, you know, girls have little girl crushes on other girls, its okay!’”
Finding herself
Hammond decided that her unexpected crush was alright, and it was just a phase. But then she continued to have crushes on more and more girls. “So, at this point in the story I’m kind of struggling with myself to figure out, you know, am I gay? Am I [bisexual]? It was very confusing,” she said.
On top of finding herself, Hammond had other issues to deal with as well. “There was nobody who was gay at our school, you know? And if there were rumors about it, that person got harassed. And I figured if people thought my mom was gay there would be rumors about me, too. So I was always really concerned about that,” she said. “And I can remember when Rachel started living with us, her car would always be in the driveway and people would be like ‘Who’s car is that?’ and I never wanted to tell them because I was always too scared about it. When they would come to school events it would always be really scary for me.”
By this time, Hammond was sure she was gay, so she realized that she could be more open with her family’s lifestyle as well as her own. She told a few friends and participated in events such as Day of Silence. “I told about three [friends], and I had one of them tell me they were bi in return,” she said. “So I probably had about three people come out to me after that, which was pretty cool.”
The big move
In 8th grade, she was sure of herself. She knew she was a lesbian, despite the opposition. Soon after her realization, she experienced a change of scenery. “As soon as I got out of 8th grade we moved to Decatur,” she said. “I think I just kind of started out here. I didn’t have a problem telling people when I first moved here because I’d kind of figured myself out… and obviously, we’re in Decatur so its not really an issue here.”
Her struggle
Even though Hammond strives to live more openly, she still struggles with the issue of coming out to her father. “Sometimes I feel like I talk about how important it is to be out and all that and [then] I feel like I’m being hypocritical by not telling my dad, she said. “At the same time I feel like telling my dad comes with a lot of consequences. There’s always a chance that he’ll get mad and repeat history with the suing issue.”
“I think the moments that are hardest for me is when I see somebody with their dad and I see kind of what it used to be like with my dad, and then I don’t really have that anymore just because I don’t feel like I can be open with him about myself,” she said. “But I feel like eventually he’s going to have to know and me putting it off and not telling him is just kinda dragging it out, and it could be stopping a relationship that I could have with him.”
Comfortable in her own skin
Despite her personal struggle, Hammond is very active, campaigning for gay rights and trying to spread awareness. She attends the annual “Pride” celebration in Midtown, rallies for Prop-8, the National Day of Silence, and other activities.
Hammond is happy to lend a hand to anyone who’s struggling to be comfortable in their own skin. “Don’t let other people discourage you from living how you want because there are always gonna be people who don’t agree with who you are,” she said. “And don’t be too quick to put a label on it [yourself] because your sexuality doesn’t need a label, you can be who you want. I would just say, don’t be afraid to be who you are.”
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